Vatican says Turin shroud proved genuine

VATICAN CITY, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- The official newspaper of the Vatican says science cannot explain the Turin shroud and has endorsed recent suggestions of its authenticity.

The newspaper cited research by Italian scientists it says suggests the shroud -- which many believe bears an imprint of the body of Jesus -- cannot be a medieval fake and may be the authentic burial cloth of Christ.

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Kept in the Turin Cathedral, the shroud is imprinted with the figure of a crucified man with wounds to his hands and feet.

A team of experts from Enea, Italy's National Agency for New Technologies and Energy, conducted five years of experiments on the shroud using lasers, and concluded the imprint of a bearded man's face and crucified body could not have been reproduced by modern scientific techniques, Britain Daily Telegraph reported.

The results obtained by the Italian scientific team were credible, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano reported.

"Revelations about the shroud easily assume a sensational tone, but in this case the measured way the scientists speak of their research is to be appreciated," Monsignor Giuseppe Ghiberti, the president of the Turin commission responsible for the relic, told the newspaper. "It's a rare thing that gives the news added seriousness."